Hey all!

As is the way of things, as soon as I complained about something, it fixed itself: the pins finally arrived yesterday! At first glance, they're looking beautiful!

I've gone through and updated all the weights for them and they were actually a lot lighter than I had estimated, so it's possible the shipping fee you originally saw on your order might have gone down a bit. 🤭

With that finally being taken care of, I'm finally going to charge cards for shipping & add-ons. I am going to start the process of charging cards today after sending this update.

Once I start the process, you will receive a 48-hour warning for your card being charged. This means your card will be charged in 2 days, on April 16th.

Please try to make sure you have the funds available for the charge to go through. If your card fails at this stage, I won't be able to send your pins.

You will still have between now and when I finish shipping orders out to fix your payment, but if you do not fix it by the time I'm done shipping, your original pledge will be considered a donation and will not be refunded.

Meanwhile, I will begin grading pins when I can. I am currently in the process of setting up and advertising my next campaign, which is launching next month on May 12. I'll be doing my best to juggle that with grading pins as fast as I can.

Once I am done grading, I will lock addresses, which is another 48-hour warning from when I start the process. I'm aiming to be done grading by the end of April so I can start shipping in May. I'd love to be done shipping everything out before my next campaign launches May 12, but if not by then, I will try to be done by the end of May.

I will be messaging you with your custom Etsy links after all the pins have been graded and I start shipping. Please continue holding tight, I really appreciate your patience! 💖

That's all for now. The next time you hear from me will be when I'm done grading the pins and I'm ready to lock addresses. Thank you for all your patience!

Cheers,
Rain

Hello all!

I was hoping to wait to make my next update until I had all the pins, however, my manufacturer used a different shipping company this time and they're taking way longer than usual with more delays than normal :(

I did however receive 1 box so far. I'm very confused as to why my shipment got split up by the shipping brokerage like this, but alas. It is out of my control.

The other 4 boxes of pins have been delayed and are still stuck overseas. 😓I'm pretty unhappy about it, and honestly so is my manu and they've assured me they won't be using this shipping company again in the future.

I apologize that this campaign is taking so long. I was hoping to be done grading and working on shipping packages out by now, and I am unhappy with all these delays. I really appreciate you all being patient with this. I want to get these pins out to you ASAP.

In better news, the pins that I DID receive at first glance look good, and I'm excited for you to see them in real life!

Once I finally receive the rest of the pins, I will be weighing each design so I can get more accurate shipping costs for all backers' orders.

After I make those adjustments, I will start the process of charging cards. You will get notified with a 48-hour warning so you can make sure you have the funds available on your payment method before getting charged.

I estimate that I will be charging cards in mid-late April. I will not have an exact date until I get more information about the delivery window for the rest of the pins. Once I do, I'll send out a date through another update.

Thanks again for being patient with me throughout this campaign! 🙏

Cheers,
Rain

Hey friends!

FINALLY, after a couple months of back-and-forth with my manufacturer, I have half-complete sample photos of the pins for you guys!

Please keep in mind: these are half-complete, which means they were just used to check enamel color accuracy and don't have any of the correct plating colors, pendant attachments, or screenprinting layers. 

Full size pins:

I thought i'd include a photo of the back of the Rumpelstiltskin pin because the manu and I had to do quite a bit of thinking to figure out how to get the spinning part to work while also allowing 3 pin posts.

Small pins:

Note about the Poison Apple Skull:
to get the desired effect I wanted with the metal on this pin, it had to be made as a pin with 3 levels instead of the typical 2. This meant that the lowest fill level with the dark red under the cheek bones has to be done with soft enamel since the polishing machines can't reach that area to polish down hard enamel. I think it looks really cool still, but if it bothers you, email me at [email protected] and I'll help you change your selection on the survey.

Now that these samples have all been approved, the pins have FINALLY moved on to mass production! 🎉

I deeply apologize at how long this has taken. Between all the back-and-forth with the manufacturer making small edits, adjustments, and fixing mistakes, it just took a lot longer than usual this time to get them to this point. Paired with the 3+ week long holiday during Feburary for the Chinese holiday, it really caused delays. Thank you so much for your patience!

For this campaign, I was experimenting with waiting to charge cards for shipping until farther along in the process. The intention behind this was to wait until I had the pins in-hand to weigh them so I can get more accurate shipping costs to you all.

I still intend to wait until I've received the pins to charge the majority of backers' cards, however, if you want me to charge yours now, I can accommodate you - send an email to [email protected] and let me know your BackerKit email so I can find your pledge and charge your card.

On that note - do you prefer my previous way of doing it where I charged cards shortly after locking surveys, or do you like it better doing it this way where I wait until later on in the fulfillment timeline? Feel free to let me know your thoughts below. :)

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Rain

Hey guys!

It's been a while since my last update on The Dark Wood so I just wanted to do something quick. Pins are taking longer than I hoped, because there was a ton of back-and-forth with my sales rep about corrections that needed to be made to the artwork to stay true to my designs, and that took literal weeks. :(

However, the artwork has all finally been approved and the pins are finally going to sampling. When I have pictures of the half-complete samples, I'll share them with you all. I was hoping to have those pictures for this update, but alas, I do not yet and I didn't want to keep leaving you guys in the dark. 😩

The main artwork adjustment I had to make was on the Goose Girl pin. The hole in the blood trail on the horse head was too small for the jump ring to go through, so the artwork had to be adjusted to make it bigger:

It definitely looks a bit different than before, but unfortunately I had no choice. The other option was to make a separate ring on the outside like the one coming off his hand, and I really didn't like how that looked, so I decided to adjust the blood drips to stay as true as possible to the original design. Thank you for understanding 🙏 If this bothers you to the point where you'd like not to receive this pin, you can message me at [email protected] and I will help you edit your order.

Since all this took so long, I will likely have to push the fulfillment timeline back a bit :( I'm just going to say that the new estimated ship date for this will be May 2026 (previously April). I'll update the timeline on the campaign page to reflect this change.

Thank you all so much for your patience and I will share more updates just as soon as I can. Thank you!

Cheers,
Rain

Hey all!

Good news - I've just put in the order for the pins, finally! Between my vacation abroad, the holidays, and prepping for my next campaign, it took a bit longer than usual to put the order in, and I apologize for that. Thank you for your patience! 🙏

That's all for this update. I'll update you again once I have half-complete sample photos from my supplier. :)

I hope your holidays were full of joy and that you had a happy new year!

Cheers,
Rain